ARTICLES ABOUT PUBLIC DEBT BY DATE - PAGE 2

SMEDEREVO, Serbia (Reuters) - The steel mill in this Danube river town has fed three generations of Milos's family. But the 17-year veteran believes he will be the last. "The plant will close down," he said. "There's no business and we won't get salaries for much longer. " Milos, who declined to give his surname, is one of 5,000 workers at the Smederevo Steel Mill who face a growing threat of redundancy following an election this weekend in Serbia. The former Yugoslav republic's likely next rulers promise a dramatic overhaul of the economic order, a costly and chaotic hybrid of Socialist-era central planning and fledgling capitalism that experts agree is no longer sustainable.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Qatar will likely face higher labor costs as a result of publicity about deaths of migrant construction workers building the infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup soccer tournament, the International Monetary Fund said. Britain's Guardian newspaper reported in September that dozens of Nepali workers had died during the summer in Qatar and that laborers were not given enough food and water. Qatar, which has denied the Guardian's findings, has seen an increasing influx of foreigners, now estimated at 1.8 million, with its population rising 10 percent in 2013.

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Standard & Poor's sovereign ratings director Lisa Schineller will meet high-ranking Brazilian government officials next week to evaluate the country's macroeconomic policies, government sources told Reuters on Friday. The meetings, which include visits with Finance Minister Guido Mantega and central bank chief Alexandre Tombini, come as Brazil works to allay concerns among S&P and other ratings agencies that its public finances have taken a turn for the worse in recent years.

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's cabinet approved a decree on Friday paving the way for the privatization of up to 40 percent of the post office as the government tries to bring down its huge public debt. The sale of Poste Italiane will be aimed at institutional and retail investors as well as post office employees, and Economy Minister Fabrizio Saccomanni said it could raise between 4 and 4.8 billion euros ($5.47-$6.57 billion). "I hope we can complete the sale before the summer," Saccomanni told reporters after the cabinet meeting.

LONDON (Reuters) - Finance minister George Osborne celebrated a sharp turnaround in Britain's economy as vindication of his austerity push on Thursday, but said he would not relax his grip on public spending in the years ahead. Obsorne used a big jump in forecasts for growth in 2013 and 2014 to taunt the opposition Labour party ahead of a general election in 17 months' time. "We have held our nerve while those - who predicted there would be no growth until we turned the spending taps back on - have been proved comprehensively wrong," he told parliament as he gave a half-yearly update on the government's economic plans.

ROME (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta on Tuesday criticized European Commissioner Olli Rehn for expressing skepticism about Italy's ability to respect pledges to cut its public debt. The economic and monetary affairs commissioner warned in a newspaper interview that Italy was not cutting its debt fast enough and he "had to be skeptical" over its plans to cut spending and sell state assets. Letta told reporters that in his role as commissioner Rehn "has no right to be skeptical.

* Completion of 85 bln euro rescue much needed EU success * But no blueprint for other bailed out countries * Mortgage arrears and high debt remain major risk By Sam Cage and Padraic Halpin DUBLIN, Oct 22 (Reuters) - At the height of the euro zone's debt crisis in July 2011, Ireland's bailout looked doomed. Its credit rating had been cut to junk and borrowing costs hiked to an eye-watering 15 percent. Nonetheless, Bank of Ireland convinced a group of North American investors to part with 1.1 billion euros and help stave off a state takeover.

(Garrett Epps is a Reuters contributor. The opinions expressed are his own.) By Garrett Epps Oct 9 (Reuters) - During the 1980s, a colorful Washington figure used to stand in Lafayette Square near the White House holding a sign: "Arrest Me. I Question the Validity of the Public Debt. Repeal Section 4, Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. " That section reads: "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.